Mumbai KOLI-FORTS

Our concept for a housing competition on the Worli Koliwada peninsula on the Western edge of Mumbai’s Mahim Bay:

The creation of 3 continuously sheltered “harbours” permits a range of activities including storing and repairing fishing equipment, even marine farming (as the sea link already shelters a zone less battered by wave action than elsewhere) leisure, gardens and small trade.

This is done using the existing FSI at 1.5 without significant investment in new roads or infrastructure with consequent displacement. Off-grid, self- sustaining, courts can be permeable at some times to water & activity, closing with sluice gates when monsoons arrive.

Limited footprint allows for re-wilding of areas not built:- “to ensure livelihood security to the fisher communities and other local communities, living in the coastal areas…and to promote development in a sustainable manner based on scientific principles taking into account the dangers of natural hazards in the coastal areas, sea level rise due to global warming.” (Extract from Coastal Regulation Zone III rating). The peninsula can thus contribute to the city’s open space and natural resource.

Aside from proposing strong sheltering forms designed to promote security & health for inhabitants, these also form an incremental infrastructure in a coastal regulation zone where development is controlled. Capable of mitigating the effects of flood & typhoon by closing off, excluding water in storms & floods, in better conditions they admit water & leave space, to re-grow natures on a denuded & battered peninsula. Marginalised former island dwellers, this harbour-island form is deployed in order to disconnect this population from threats, restoring their connection with natural forces, manifesting a retreat from the extremes of globalisation, and promoting shelter, the primary commodity of architecture.